On April 11th, Lars Peter Hansen, the famous economist, 2013 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and member of National Academy of Sciences, brought the students and teachers of SJTU an excellent lecture:The Economic Impact of Uncertainty in a Changing Environment.

The Vice President of SJTU, prof. Xu Min and Party Secretary of Antai College of Economics & Management, prof. Yu Yangming addressed the meeting respectively, welcoming Prof. Hansen’s visit. Assistant professor Li Nan also shared an anecdote of his mentor working together with prof. Hansen.

Prof. Hansen began the lecture with probability and opportunity game, with which he introduced the concept of uncertainty and risks. By combining probability theory with social sciences, he explained the existence of uncertainty in the realm of economic analysis in aneasy-to-understand approach. He used the analogy of blue and red balls to illustrate the nature of uncertainty. He then moved on to the topic of long-term risks and uncertainty in macro economics and its impact on asset pricing and policy making, unveiling its mystery. Towards the end of the lecture, he brought the house down with a famous quote by Confucius and Mark Twain: “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”

In the Q&A session, Professor Hanson patiently answered questions from students discussed with them about their research interests in macroeconomics.

Towards the end of the lecture, the student organization committee of Master Distinguished Lecture sent an elaborate clay sculpture as a souvenir to Prof. Hansen, expressing sincere gratitude and warm wishes to him. Prof. Hansen left his handprints and inscription and took agroup photo with students who worked for this forum to mark the occasion.

Lecturer’s Profile:

Lars Peter Hansen is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a distinguished fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Finance Association, as well as the past president of the Econometrics Society. He is a leading expert in economic dynamics who works at the boundaries of economics and statistics. His widely acknowledged academic achievement is “making fundamental contributions topeople’s understanding of how economic actors cope with risky and changing environments”. In 2013, he received Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for developing a statistical method that is particularly well suited to testing rational theories of asset pricing.